


Where It Hurt

by mr-finch (soubriquet)



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drinking, Gen, Sleeptalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 14:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soubriquet/pseuds/mr-finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fusco's not so much a friend when Stills first meets him as he is cowering animal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where It Hurt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [livenudebigfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/livenudebigfoot/gifts).



> "Now they are no longer  
> any trouble to each other
> 
> he can turn things over, get down to that list  
> of things that never happened, all of the lost
> 
> unfinishable business.  
> For instance… for instance"

Fusco's not so much a friend when Stills first meets him as he is cowering animal (this is way before James will see the full extent to which Fusco bows to authority and heels closer to ankles than his own dog), and Stills won't pretend he hasn't been around the block, leastways, around it long enough to see when someone hasn't been brought up that well.

So, yeah, he uses him a little to get a guy in Homicide on their team, but by then he's starting to see all the other guys railing in on Fusco and to a large extent he just doesn't want to be a part of that.

Working together means you get to know each other, and walking the beat way back when meant long hours and lots of coffee and maybe a drink now and again. Stills has a kid and Lionel has a kid so they'd talk about that sometimes, and both of them had a wife but they didn't talk about them so much.

Stills hadn't fallen prey to divorce back then, and through all the years they end up having each others backs, his remains intact; Fusco's not so lucky. Arguments, more drinking, he starts clamming up, and when the message gets passed along the line and a guy called Pike comes to rough him up for sloppy police work, Stills covers for him. Blames it on the other guy they were with, says that he didn't follow the instructions carefully. That Pike and his boss will back off if they know what's good for them.

They listen to him; that's the difference. No one would listen to Fusco, not even through his ex-Boston mouth, and he thinks Fusco knows that. He thinks Lionel might not talk about things just because he's used to talk getting him nowhere.

Bullet holes in a back room, print-wiped guns, another bar. Stills told home this one would be a late night, so he's got plenty of time, and besides, these days he keeps half an eye on their dirty cop even when he doesn't want to. He can keep uptight punks like Pike at bay, but it's only too easy to get the big guns down, and there's a lot of Homicide task-force left to corrupt in this city.

"Lionel," he says, sliding onto the stool next to him, "You look like you could use some company." 

"You could say that," says his partner, rough hands curled around a shot glass that doesn't look like his first.

"Bad night?"

Fusco chuckles, and looks at him with one eyebrow half-cocked. "In a series of 'em." 

As the shot disappears, Stills shifts in his seat, wondering just how many he's been through. "Listen- Lionel, you gotta stop this." 

The guy ignores him, motioning for the bar tender and putting down another bill; Stills slams his hand down on top of it, pinning both.

"Hey- hey! Jesus!"

"They're listening, Lionel," Stills says, grabbing Fusco's shirt with his other hand just to keep him there, his voice lowered, "They don't like it when you fuck up, and I can't keep protecting you."

"So don't," Fusco says, like he always does. "Nobody else does, and it doesn't bother them."

"Yeah but Lionel, you're my friend," Stills reminds him, like he's being a little slow today, and it's mainly the drink figuring in but a big part of it's just Fusco; just Fusco being all sad and wallowing in his fears.

That gets him to listen, breaks him out of his stupor, and that night Stills can drive him home without needing to make sure Fusco doesn't black out, can let him into his house because he has a key, and things are okay in the daytime. Fusco is a little blue-eyed and bleary, but he does his job in the end and that's what matters.

James Stills has brought his cop-friend back to  _his_  home a few times, and his kid loves him. She's six years old and a beauty just like her mother, and Stills lets her bother Lionel just a bit too long when he comes over for dinner because he can see the guy loves it.

This one time, he comes in from the kitchen to offer Fusco a beer and a cigar out on the porch, but the two of them are already in the middle of Fantasia and Fusco has a tiny pink bow in his hair that Stills won't let him forget for a month.

So he's proud of her when, five hours too late, he arrives at their house one night with a drunken Fusco still apologising for being such a pussy and decidedly not talking about his wife, and Rebecca isn't supposed to be up but she is anyway - hasn't woken her mom - just standing silently at the bottom of the stairs until she asks dad real quietly whether she should get Uncle Fusco a pillow.

"Sure, honey," he says, and drops Lionel's weight onto the couch, yanking the laces off his shoes and leaving them - creased, beaten things - on the rug next to it.

"Sorry," mumbles Fusco again, and, looking up, Stills tells him he doesn't have to apologise, that he's got the room, that it's just a couch and what are friends for. 

"Your kid," Fusco clarifies, and just at that moment Rebecca returns, with a pillow half as tall as her clutched to her stomach, eyeing Lionel like he's a mystery brought home in the witching hour.

"Is he okay?"

Stills smiles at Fusco. "Yeah, sweetheart, he's fine, just a little tired."

In answer, she steps closer to him and holds out her pillow, which Fusco takes with surprising grace, and he thanks her for it. It's only when Stills suggests he go get Fusco a blanket and tuck Rebecca back in bed that Lionel raises a hand to his eyes and turns half away, like he's exhausted or still fighting something.

Rebecca is sleepy but full of questions, and it takes Stills longer than he'd thought to get her back to sleep again. Still, when she finally goes, the house is peaceful, and a part of him relaxes that hasn't been able to wind down all day. Just Fusco left to deal with now.

He sneaks a blanket out of the linen closet, heads back downstairs, and finds his old partner lying on the couch. He's already asleep; arm still curled over his eyes even though there's no light on, with his face pressed against the back of the sofa. And because it's kind of cold, James goes ahead and covers him up, as much as he can anyway.

It's something like four in the morning, but after the night he's had, a beer sounds just about peachy. He takes it in a chair opposite Lionel, who starts to snore softly after ten minutes but doesn't shift the blanket off.

As far as he knows, Fusco's had a regular day, but he's been knee-deep in HR's latest haul and he's getting kind of sick of the mouth on one of the guys. It's the same shitheel he blamed Fusco's mistake on - probably got it out for him now, stirring up unrest like a hungry coyote. Jesus.

Well, a regular day except the part where his wife left him. That's why he's back here, after all, sleeping on Stills' couch and mumbling until the sun comes up. He'd been bad enough at the bar, staring into his drink and going over the same shit again and again. 

Kind of like the way Stills keeps sticking his neck out for him, knowing that eventually somewhere along the line, it's probably gonna break.

"You're a real bastard, Lionel," he says, his voice quiet and bare. And it's just the two of them in the room, so Stills nearly jumps out of his skin when Fusco says, in a weary little voice.

"No I'm not."

He waits a second, then a minute, but Fusco doesn't move or stop his slow breathing. He's still asleep then, must be.

Stills leans slowly forward, resting his elbows on his knees to close the gap across the room. "You awake?"

Fusco doesn't reply this time, but moves instead, letting out a soft, annoyed noise that sounds pissed off at the same time as it's completely unthreatening.

Stills tries not to grin, and speaks again. "You're a pretty princess, Lionel."

That gets a reaction, a long, drawn-out "noooo" that makes this situation suddenly incredibly funny.

"Yes, you are," Stills says, and he's concentrating so hard on not waking Fusco up that he almost misses his reply. It's squashed in the couch cushions, but Fusco undeniably shivers, and curls up further, then lets out the quietest, most miserable little noise that Stills has ever heard.

It stops the laughter right in his throat, and Stills' eyes go straight to the pillow; what he can see of Fusco's face from here is scrunched up, cringing like he's backing away from something.

It's not the first time he's made fun of Fusco, but it is the last time he makes him look like that.

In the morning, Fusco has a hell of a hangover and Stills has some quick talking and a lot of apologising to do with his better half after Rebecca starts asking if Fusco's better this morning. Still, Lionel clears out pretty soon after she comes down for breakfast, holding his creased-up jacket in one hand and the porch wall with the other.

"I'm better off out of here," he says, and Stills can't say no to that one, so he just nods and points him to his taxi. 

Fusco hadn't noticed, it's all over his face when he looks back, but Stills just tells him to get his ass in bed and not to worry about the fare, hoping that the hangover will mess with Lionel's stubbornness about cash. It's either that or a healthy tip, he supposes.

When he runs into a guy who wants him to stop what he's doing, in a lobby sometime in September, he isn't thinking about death, or divorce, or hangovers. The last time he saw his kid was this morning; the last time he spoke to Lionel was a couple of hours earlier. He has yet to tell his wife he loves her.

Sure, it doesn't happen every day, but it's usually an evening deal. They'll sit down for dinner, they'll talk about Rebecca, and Stills will briefly mention work. Helen might bring up some small problem, maybe something he or they need to focus on in the near future, he'll agree to stop off by the grocery store tomorrow after work; it's not original, but it's normal. Secure.

It's usually in the kitchen - after sex he tends to drop right off, so more often than not it's right after they've eaten - Rebecca runs off to go get a movie or he's about to find her a book, and he and Helen have just a moment where the world isn't racing too fast for the both of them. She'll hand him a plate and give him a kiss.

That's when they normally say 'I love you', and that's what Stills thinks about, incomprehensibly, as he touches the muzzle of his gun to the ex-con's neck and stares across the lobby.

He doesn't think about Lionel Fusco until he can't anymore, when his still-bleeding body is left in the trunk of a car and he doesn't have the wherewithal to hear Reese dictate his burial. If he could, he might say  _hey Lionel, guess I didn't die on your watch after all,_ or maybe _sorry for calling you a princess once._

He'd certainly hear Fusco trying not to cry when he opened the trunk, and notice that the grave had taken twice as long; maybe he would've even begged him not to throw him in there - or, as is the case, dragging him in on his knees like Fusco's burying a piece of his soul with him, like even after all the bad things they've done, Fusco has never felt truly alone before.

Stills doesn't know that Lionel won't move away from his grave for a very long time. He definitely doesn't know that the guy makes a phone call when he's a few miles out, in a car doused with bleach, to his ex-wife, just to talk. He doesn't know that part of Lionel's paycheck goes into an account marked for an R. Stills forever after, and that he visits Helen off and on but never tells her. 

And sure, he used him now and then, maybe once a little too often, but he'd never meant too much harm by it. Like most people, James Stills didn't ever want to find his way into the ground, but what are friends for?


End file.
